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It does the core gameplay a helluva lot better than Fallout 3, though - the combat is better balanced, the weapons and enemies are more varied, the environments are larger and more convincingly designed, if not quite as artistically vivid, the party members are much more controllable and useful, etc etc. Fallout 3 is more densely packed and has a more distinctive visual style, but really, that's all it has going for it over New Vegas, unless you really need a story that continually pats you on the back and reminds you how great you are.

None of those criticisms were exactly wrong though, were they? The game really is ludicrously sparsely populated. The environments really do suck. Visually it just beggars belief. It doesn't make it a bad game, but really guys.

No. There were a lot of mistruths in there.
Claiming that he hadn't had to drink in days of game time shows that he must have been at a super low difficulty level or had turned it off.
The complaint about an empty bar is part of a quest to find staff for the bar.
The screen shot of the empty casino was taken during a quest where the casino is cleared of NPCs
The screen shot of the tiny farm shows one of a dozen fields and neglects to mention the huge covered growing plots just out of shot.
The shot used to illustrate the empty Mojave was taken literally on the door step of one of the most interesting locations in the game. And has at least three landmarks on the horizon.
The snow globe collector doesn't have any snow globes because he collects them from you.
He dismisses the Legion entirely which is a bit... off. Given the context of your first meeting which he alludes to.
The rest of the article is a mix of complaining about graphics (Bethesda's fault) or just insulting the developers (not cool)

Then theres just his opinions that are quantifiably wrong. Like that the Subway system in Fallout 3 was a good thing. Or that the writing in FO3 was better. Those are opinions. And they are wrong.

He went in with the intention of writing a scathing funny review in the style of Yahtzee or Consolevania. He just wasn't very good at it.

My favourite part though was his first impression article before the review
"By far the most annoying and prevalent oddity is that the NPCs you encounter in towns and stationed around the wasteland have strange, hairpin senses of danger, and simply walking past them can be enough to trigger some kind of evasive AI routine. The result is that you’ll walk into a town, and four or five NPCs will abruptly start sprinting away from you in endless
circles. “WELCOME, STRANGER,” they’ll shout while rubbing themselves against burnt-out trucks and walls. Sound annoying? Now imagine you have to talk to one of them for a quest, so you end up chasing them all around town. Yeah."

Then you realise he has his gun out in every shot. Then he complains he couldn't holster his gun without going to the menu.
So he was running around town with his shotgun wondering why everyone was so nervous.

No I don't know whether it was deliberate trolling or he was in a bad mood but it's funny he did very few WiTs after that.

One last question then I'll stop bugging you: I grabbed the DFB random encounters mod in its "merged" form with DLC content. I've not previously played through the DLC, though, so I'm wondering if that was an error. I don't necessarily mind seeing DLC critters out of context, but am I liable to spoil the DLC for myself that way?

One last question then I'll stop bugging you: I grabbed the DFB random encounters mod in its "merged" form with DLC content. I've not previously played through the DLC, though, so I'm wondering if that was an error. I don't necessarily mind seeing DLC critters out of context, but am I liable to spoil the DLC for myself that way?

I think that just means that all the DLC packages for spawns in the appropriate locations are combined, rather than being four seperate files.

I'm currently playing this after a playthrough of the entire Fallout series and I agree with the OP. Fallout 3 sucked. It had OK art and level design, but the writing/plot/characters were horrible so I never really felt like I had any reason to explore just because all you run into is more suck. Fallout: NV feels much more like Fallout 2 and it's way better in almost every way.

My only problem is I'm playing a hardcore game on very hard and it still feels a bit too easy, even though I'm only level 12. Especially once you get followers. It kind of makes me wish I had played with the new developer mod that makes the game harder.

Then I would term them sandbox RPGs, and on an unrelated note I do intend to play them someday but... time, y'know.

I think that Fallout in esssention IS a sandbox rpg. You are free to go anywhere you want. in fact, the storyline revolves around it. You have two main quests in fallout: The first is to find a water chip that ensures that your vault can continue operating. No one knows where it is. Go roaming! However, for the first objective, there is a time limit. For the second -- there was one, but it got patched out.

Load-order, I just went with whatever seemed most logical. Project Nevada first and foremost (after patches, obviously).

The mods I'm using for spawns are Increased Wasteland Spawns (basically adds more vanilla-style spawn nodes around the map, so should be compatible with just about anything) and DFB - Random Encounters, which adds a chance every 10 minutes of play of dropping a random in an interesting random group headed your way. Makes the desert feel a it more hostile/lively.

I also used the New Vegas Configurator to increase my active cells and view distance-related a bit, as I've got a fairly beefy PC now and can handle a larger view range. I'm also running Nevada Skies to make lighting more vivid, especially at night. Vegas really looks quite striking when it's genuinely dark outside. It makes the alternate vision modes on my currrent helmet (night and thermal) all the more useful, too.

Not encountered any stability problems. I think one crash so far out in the open after 25+ hours of play.

Nevada Skies = AWESOME.
I have an heavily mod-laden NV too and it's a completely different experience from vanilla, lemme tell ya.
I'm a sucker for "primary needs" and crafting mods - as in, no more running for weeks at a time without a single sip of water in the damn Mojave desert. Having actually need of food and water means no more filling your backpack with three thousand minigun bullets, but thinking on what to carry in regards of what you're gonna do and where, so if I'm just traveling from Vegas to Novac, I'll just need a couple of pork'n beans and maybe a tasty gecko kebab with a couple of bottles of water-heading to scavenge a Vault needs a completely different setup. Add to that the dark nights of Nevada Skies and you'll really, really need to think about setting up camp somewhere when the sun begins to go down. Oh, did I add that I have a Corvega mod - in which fast travel is tied to finding and repairing a car? No car, no fast travel - just foot. No wonders I have more than 100 hours on NV, huh?

Oh, did I add that I have a Corvega mod - in which fast travel is tied to finding and repairing a car? No car, no fast travel - just foot. No wonders I have more than 100 hours on NV, huh?

Sounds like the motorcycle sub-mod for FWE in Fallout 3, which was definitely the only way to play with fast travel. Do you have to maintain the car after it's working? Fuel it? Does this play nice with Project Nevada?

Sounds like the motorcycle sub-mod for FWE in Fallout 3, which was definitely the only way to play with fast travel. Do you have to maintain the car after it's working? Fuel it? Does this play nice with Project Nevada?

IIRC - it's been a while since I last loaded New Vegas, you know, trying to un-remember every little pebble around the Mojave - it's quite similar to the motorcycle mod, needing fuel and repairs. Works perfectly with Project Nevada, I think it's been developed with that mod in mind.
Here it is, btw: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/downlo...e.php?id=37708

IIRC - it's been a while since I last loaded New Vegas, you know, trying to un-remember every little pebble around the Mojave - it's quite similar to the motorcycle mod, needing fuel and repairs. Works perfectly with Project Nevada, I think it's been developed with that mod in mind.
Here it is, btw: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/downlo...e.php?id=37708

Right. What I meant was, will the version of the mod that includes DLC spawns spoil anything for someone that's not played the DLC? Thanks again for all the help on this.

Nah, it just means you'll see additional encounters within each DLC episode. There's also optional Enclave encounters anywhere, Fallout 3 style, but it's disabled by default because it doesn't make too much sense.

Hmm, so the Corvega mod apparently conflicts with Nevada Skies. The Corvega devs have packed an altered Nevada Skies .esp that supposedly resolves the problem, but it appears to be a much earlier version of the mod. I'm at a bit of an impasse, here. I really liked the motorcycle-based fast travel in FO3 and would love to have something like that again, is Nevada Skies worth the trade-off?

Hmm, so the Corvega mod apparently conflicts with Nevada Skies. The Corvega devs have packed an altered Nevada Skies .esp that supposedly resolves the problem, but it appears to be a much earlier version of the mod. I'm at a bit of an impasse, here. I really liked the motorcycle-based fast travel in FO3 and would love to have something like that again, is Nevada Skies worth the trade-off?

Hm - maybe I'll make the Captain Obvious to the rescue, but: have you tried modifying the load order and putting Nevada Skies last? I have them both in my mod-list and without trouble. Also, you may want to fire up FNVEdit and making a merged patch - very useful if you have Project Nevada and other mods active at the same time.
If all should fail, I'd try reinstalling Corvega first and Nevada Skies later - the latter overwrites the former, if needs be - and make sure of the load order via Nexus Mod Manager.

Hm - maybe I'll make the Captain Obvious to the rescue, but: have you tried modifying the load order and putting Nevada Skies last? I have them both in my mod-list and without trouble. Also, you may want to fire up FNVEdit and making a merged patch - very useful if you have Project Nevada and other mods active at the same time.
If all should fail, I'd try reinstalling Corvega first and Nevada Skies later - the latter overwrites the former, if needs be - and make sure of the load order via Nexus Mod Manager.

To be clear I haven't tried anything at all, as I don't want to get rolling on a game and then have things break. If putting Skies last is sufficient to resolve the issue without breaking the Corvega mod that's fine by me, but that's not how the Corvega readme reads.